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Marble Painting – More Rainy Day Messy Art Fun!
Another rainy day meant another afternoon of messy art fun! Today we used our marbles to create fantastic works of art and most importantly had a lot of fun doing it! What we used: marbles paint trays (we used a printing tray and a lid of a shoe box – couldn’t find my 2nd printing tray!!!!) card cheap and cheerful frames from Ikea basin of soapy water What we did: We placed a piece of card onto each tray and squirted some paint onto the card Doodles and oodles practiced with one marble first in order to get used to rolling the marble around the tray through the paint. They…
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Beach Themed Invitation to Play – Small World Play and Sensory Play
A Beach Themed sensory play activity was on our 100 Days of Summer Bucket List and this week we had we had the opportunity to cross it off our list and have a whole lot of fun doing it! So, what is an invitation to play (you may have seen this term used on this blog and elsewhere before)? Simply, it is arranging an activity in an attractive manner that will encourage a child’s curiosity, allow opportunities for exploration, independent play and participation in a meaningful, purpose and sensory way. It should invite the child to want to play and use their imagination. Of course it should also be age…
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Summer Butterfly Collages: An Invitation to Create – using materials as a stimulus
I love to wander around “Euro” or “Pound” shops looking out for bits and pieces to use in art projects or play activities. On one such trip recently I found these card butterfly cut outs. I’m not a huge fan of using templates and cut outs but I find if they are used in the right way they can be very useful for creative process art projects. Often I use some sort of a stimulus for our art activities – a book, an item, a picture, or even a piece of music. I also use the actual art materials as a stimulus, which is what I did for this…
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Displaying Children’s Books -Encouraging Young Readers
We are book lovers here at Our Little House in the Country. Our home is full to the brim with books. I recently donated about 10 large boxes of books, mostly novels, in order to make room for the rest. I have been collecting children’s books for over 15 years and we have hundreds. We have picture books, board books, children’s novels, non-fiction books, story anthologies, pop-up books, lift and flap books, you name it we probably have it! Both of my children love to read and look through their books. I have tried to encourage this by displaying the books in a way that is child friendly and accessible…
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Print Making – A Simple, Step by Step Introductory Guide to Print Making with Children
Over the years I have given several art courses for teachers, offering ideas for the classroom. I recently came across some of my old files and they got me thinking about some of the most successful and fun courses I have facilitated. One of them was a course I gave in Print making for teachers of Primary School children (ages 4-12). These activities are great for the classroom but they are also really easy to do at home with little ones. Here’s my step by step introductory guide to Print Making – Have Fun! Equipment: *items in bold are essentials O Acetate sheets O Masking tape O Rollers O Printing…
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Doodles’s Book of the Week – We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
Doodles’ is my 4 ½ year old boy and a serious book lover. His book of choice this week surprised me a little. Not that it’s not a great book as it truly is but because he loved this book when he was younger but seemed to have grown out of it. However, over the last week or so his preschool class have been working on this book, going on their own bear hunts, creating small worlds, painting and drawing their favourite parts of the story etc. So this probably explains his renewed interest in this book. I’m sure that you are familiar with this book but in case you…
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Our Big Blue Activity Box, aka “The What To Do When I’m Bored Box” – 15 activity ideas
Today, I have decided to share the contents of our “Big Blue Activity Box”. Back in early January I found that both of my children were grouchy and irritable and weren’t playing with toys or anything for that matter. They would not play independently and I was completely worn out plus we were battling colds and sore throats etc. I think they were “hung-over” after the festivities of the Christmas season – toys, gifts, sweets, lots of time with both Mr G and I. At the time I felt that I was spending my days separating the two of them, listening to howls and whinging, dealing with silly behaviour. Off…
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(Books for Children) Oodles’ Book of the Week – My Mummy by Paula Metcalf & Lucy Barnard
This week’s book is My Mummy, written by Paula Metcalf and illustrated by Lucy Barnard. I know this book inside out and off by heart. This is by far Oodles’ favourite book! I if you look closely at the photos you will see the tell-tale signs of a well-loved, well read, well-worn book – crinkly pages, dog eared cover, little milk stains, etc. Every night for almost 3 months solid I read this book to her. My hubby Mr G, used to laugh at me, “reading” this book in the pitch dark at 3am if she woke and needed help getting back to sleep– I know every last word of…
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(Kids) Rainy Day Survival Plan (and a little moan!)
Just when I thought Spring was well and truly under way, the storms returned. It is dark and dreary, very wet and windy outside! We got soaked running from the house to the car and car to school on the school run this morning! Doodles and Oodles were delighted as they got to use their Mickey Mouse and Peppa Pig umbrellas! I am dreading going out again shortly to take O to her “Mummy and Me” music class, but she loves it and I know that I’ll enjoy it too once we get there. To top it all off, I’m tired, very, very tired this week. All my plans to…
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(Books for Children) Our Top 5 “Story” Board Books for Toddlers
Board books are such an amazing way to introduce little ones to books. We have lots of them, I keep them in little baskets in each room for easy access as well as displaying some on our kitchen book rack and the book rack made from an old cot side in O’s room. Board books are so much easier for little hands to manipulate, allowing toddlers to turn pages with ease. Of course they are also so much more durable!!!! There is such a huge variety of board books available that I wasn’t sure which type to begin with. I decided to take a look at story books this week. …
